


Alive!

by feverbeats



Category: Bandom RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Black Parade, Big Bang, Gen, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-31
Updated: 2009-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-05 13:39:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverbeats/pseuds/feverbeats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She could have handled mad hatters. The Parade is something else entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alive!

**Author's Note:**

> Band Girls Bang fic.

When Lindsey Ballato is eighteen, her room is full of a million stupid little things that make her feel better about life. She has a unicorn mobile in the window, and its metallic horses clatters together when the wind blows. She has a collection of comic books about girls who kick people in the head. She has has a guitar she's still learning how to play. It's actually her third guitar, because she broke the first one and lit the second one on fire. Her parents don't exactly know what to do with her, but she has a part-time job, and they can't stop her from buying stuff.

She also has nightmares and a full-length mirror on her closet door.

Lindsey suspects that current intensity of the nightmares has something to do with this terrible summer of uncertainty. She's trapped in the tiny space between high school and college, just waiting out the summer. She doesn't even have many friends to take up her time. Instead, she locks herself in her room, buys hoodies, and listens to music.

It's not as though she's exactly unlikable, it's just that half her high school thinks she's crazy. She probably shouldn't have come to school in zombie makeup during homecoming. She felt like it was a statement, at the time, but now she's sure paying for it.

Maybe it's because she's a little weird, but she likes to think she's _normal_-weird. She wears all black sometimes, and she likes bones and music with lots of screaming. That's not so out-there. But for some reason, she still can't keep friends.

And maybe it's to do with the nightmares. They've gotten worse this summer, but they're not exactly new. She's had them for as long as she can remember, even when she was a baby. Her mother tells her she used to wake up crying in her crib. Now, eighteen years later and sleeping in the same room, she's bothered by the nightmares almost every single night. It's becoming unbearable.

They're a little bit different every night, too, so she can never quite get used to them. Just when she's settled in to the one with the skeletons, the children in black make an appearance.

So, these dreams. The skeletons are the oldest of the dreams, dating back to the time she was four, maybe even earlier. She's not sure what the dreams were like before that. The one with the skeletons is the tamest, too.

It sometimes starts out with a field, or sometimes it will be an empty city square. It's always very bleak, though, somewhere empty and quiet. Then, the skeletons come in, all in a line, marching into the space and filling it with their clattering bones. Lindsey watches, unable to do anything, unable to move or scream. She's not sure she'd want to, though. She's never quite afraid.

When all of the skeletons stop moving, though, that's when the fear starts: great waves of it, rolling over her. She's not sure why she's so afraid, or where the feeling comes from, but she doesn't think it's anything to do with the skeletons themselves.

She doesn't even want to think about the one with the babies in gas masks. That's new and terrifying and she can't examine it even in the daylight. She doesn't have anyone to talk to about it, either, so she just tries not to think about it.

In June, she borrows her mother's car, and drives into town to buy a Happy Meal at McDonald's. Happy Meals are her comfort food, even though she's trying to do that weight-loss thing, sort of. Nobody likes chubby, angry girls, she tells herself, not really buying it.

When she's back home on her bed sipping a chocolate shake, she tries to figure out exactly what she's dissatisfied with her life right now. She potentially has a future next year, if she keeps it together and makes money this summer. None of it feels right, though. She blames the dreams.

She sighs and throws the rest of the milkshake in the trash. The room feels too hot and stuffy, but she doesn't want to open a window. Everything in her is telling her that she's trapped, even though she has no idea what escape would look like.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a tiny movement, and she turns toward it. Sighing, she catches sight of her own pale, tense face in the mirror. Smooth. Being scared of her own reflection is a new low. For some reason, though, she can't look away from the mirror, and she stands up and crosses the room to it. The surface is completely still.

Lindsey pushes one hand against the mirror. "Hello," she says. "Hello, hello." Her voice echoes strangely. Then suddenly the surface of the mirror bends under her hand, and although her reflex is to pull back, she doesn't. Then the entire mirror is swimming like water against her palm, and it feels gooey and slick. "Oh," she says, but before she has a chance to do anything else, she's falling forward into the mirror's surface.

She wants to scream, but she's afraid of the strange, liquid mirror-material filling her mouth, so she clamps down on the sound. She keeps her eyes open, though.

Everything is silver and constantly moving, and Lindsey can't stop herself from slipping deeper into the mirror.

When she finally lands on solid ground, she's standing in the middle of an abandoned square. "Oh," she says again. For some reason, she can't quite muster up anything like surprise. She's been here dozens of times, after all. This isn't a dream, though, and she isn't dumb enough to think it is.

There are a few low buildings, scattered around the edges of the square, some of them like bunkers and some like the remains of castles. It's weirdly beautiful, in a sort of scraped-open, quiet way. She turns in a slow circle, taking stock. There's no one here, but the air shimmers a little as though there's something suspended in it. She's not sure it even is air.

She knows what comes next, too, if this is anything like one of her dreams. She stands very still, fingering her fingerless gloves with the bones printed on the back. People are always calling her a goth because she likes bones, but it's not exactly just a fashion statement.

It's not a fucking death wish, either. She's not obsessed with skeletons, they're obsessed with her. She can't get away from these dreams, and now she seems to be trapped in one. She knows she's awake, though, this time.

She looks up at the close, brown sky and sees a blimp hovering over her. There is a city in the distance. She knows this place like she knows herself, which is actually pretty damn well. Hers are not identity issues, they're something else. She presses her hand into the air, almost expecting to fall back through.

"That's not how it's done, kiddo," says a voice behind her, and she spins around. There's a dais at the edge of the square, ringed with faded tassels and covered with tarnished musical instruments. There's a young man, about Lindsey's age, sitting on it. His shoes are too big and his eyeliner makes him look like he's been punched. He runs a hand through his spiky green hair. "I'm Jimmy," he says. "'Sup?"

She frowns. "Lindsey. Where the hell am I?"

He laughs a little crazily and doesn't answer. "Yeah, that. I'm guessing you fell through your swimming pool or your mirror or your computer screen or something." He pats the dais next to him. "Sit."

For some reason, she hesitates. It's not that she doesn't trust him; she just doesn't want to let her guard down in this strange world of her dreams. "Mirror," she offers, wondering if she should even have given up her name so easily.

Jimmy hops off the dais abruptly. "Listen, never mind sitting. Why don't we get inside? Looks like a storm."

It doesn't, exactly, but Lindsey knows what he means, and she's not going to risk ignoring him. He probably knows this place at least as well as she does.

She lets him lead her into a little building, barely more than a hovel. Once they're inside, he turns to her, eyes flashing. "This is fucking great."

Lindsey would argue the point, but she's feeling oddly elated behind her fear and discomfort. "Yeah?" she says carefully, wishing she had her matches.

He nods, hair bobbing. "People hardly ever come through lately."

A horrible thought strikes her. "We're not stuck here, are we?" Then again, she shouldn't have expected anything better. There aren't exactly a lot of mirrors around here.

"Nope. Not yet, anyway. Here, let me tell you about it." He laughs. "Kidding, of course. There's not really anything to tell."

Lyn-Z pulls away. "Cute. I'm leaving."

Before she has a chance to even turn toward the door, Jimmy grabs her arm, squeezing painfully. "Thing is," he says, leaning closer and hunching his shoulders a little, "we really shouldn't go outside."

Lindsey can't tell if he's serious or not, but she's not actually about to go back out there. She's seen what happens, sort of. "I know," she says. "I think I know this place just as well as you do." It's a long shot, but she's getting annoyed, and she didn't put up with stupid nightmares her entire life to be one-upped by some punk kid with bad hair.

He laughs, and it's a weird sound, not quite out of place here, although it should be. "Cool," he says. "Maybe you can bring me up to speed, then." He reaches into his pocket slowly, takes a marker and waves it dangerously close to her face. "C'mere."

She can't say she trusts him, but she is staring to like his weirdness, so she nods a little. "Go for it."

He presses the marker against her skin and scrawls something across her cheek and nose with big, sweeping strokes.

"So," she says when he's done, moving away from him, "Why me, anyway?"

He shrugs. "Why not?"

"When I was twelve, I was in band," she says slowly. As if that actually has anything to do with this, but she still can't get the dream images of the lines of people in black marching-band uniforms out of her head.

"When you were little," he says, "you were sick. Me, too."

She frowns. "I had . . . Well, they didn't know what I had. But I got better on my own, so it can't have been that bad."

"Would you believe me if I said it was supernatural?" He wags his eyebrows at her.

She's fallen through her mirror into a nightmare today. She'll believe anything. Then again, there's something about this kid that Lindsey doesn't feel right about, as if maybe he reminds her of someone at school who bugs her. That's unfair, though, because nearly everyone bugs her, and Jimmy hasn't done anything terrible yet. "Fine," she says. "It's supernatural. That doesn't really answer any of my questions." She folds her arms over her chest protectively.

He smiles. "No shit. Welcome to hell, baby."

She knows it's just a thing to say, but the words still make her nervous. But no, hell wouldn't be anything so familiar as this world straight out of her dreams. Maybe she made this place up in her head, but she's never been crazier than most people. "Thanks," she says.

"Let's do this thing," Jimmy says, and before Lindsey can ask what he means, he yanks the door open again and everything goes white.

When she wakes up, she's less than shocked to find herself in her own bed, safe and sound again. The covers smell like home, and everything around her looks like it always has. Her teeth ache with the dullness of it, the horribly forced routine. She looks at the clock: a half an hour until work. The question is, was last night a dream, or what? But no, she's smarter than that. It didn't feel like a dream, and she hasn't been so _present_ in any of the old dreams.

She glances at the mirror, but it remains absolutely still. She sighs, grabs eyeliner from her bedside table, and rolls out of bed. Time to face the day in her best outfit. She looks at the mirror long enough to see the letters Jimmy wrote on her face. The word is backwards, but she can still make out the huge blue letters: _Lyn-Z_. She can live with that.

That day, she writes it in the margin of her notebook and makes up her mind. The next times she goes through the mirror, she will be Lyn-Z.

Six hours later, work is over and her makeup is practically running in the heat of the summer day. She drew the black circles around her eyes a little wider today, and she's not going to lie about whether or not it was on purpose. She's curious about the world on the other side of the mirror. She wants to go back, learn the rules, learn exactly what the danger she can always feel is about. Mostly, though, she wants to see Jimmy again. He may be weird, but he could be her type of weird. She just needs time to find out.

Tonight, she waits until her parents are asleep. No sense worrying them, although they didn't mention anything last time. That could be because she's mostly free to come and go as she pleases, but she thinks there's something else going on. She wonders idly if maybe her body stays here, too, while she's through the fucking looking glass. Her mouth twists. She could have handled mad hatters. The Parade is something else entirely.

When it's dark out and the house is quiet, Lindsey dresses in a plain black hoodie and goes to stand in front of the mirror. She touches it again. Nothing happens.

Pulling away, she frowns. Maybe it's not so easy this time. Her eyes fall on the makeup on her bedside table, and she grabs an eyeliner pencil. Feeling as though she's doing something highly ritualistic, she draws slightly larger circles of black around her eyes. She shrugs. Not bad. They're not as big as the circles around Jimmy's eyes, but she feels like maybe that's right. This time when she touches the mirror, it yields a little, and before she knows it, she's falling again.

This time, to her surprise, she's not in the square when her feet touch the ground. She in a little white room with walls that feel too close and confining. The room is empty, except for a hospital bed and a little wall of machinery piled next to it. One of the monitors beeps faintly.

In the bed, there's a boy. He looks as though he's about Lyn-Z's age, and he's very, very pale. It's not the natural pale of a kid who hides inside all day reading comic books, it's a sickly, quiet pale, and it reminds Lyn-Z of her childhood. She hates hospitals.

She takes a few steps forward. "Hello?" She feels as though she's intruding on someone's deathbed.

His eyes open, and she wants to flinch away. They're dark, sad eyes, and he manages to look like he's been punched even without makeup like Jimmy's. "Hi," he says, and his voice is croaky and strained.

"I'm Lyn-Z," she says. "I think I fell into your world." There's no sense beating around the bush or trying to make this seem normal, because this kid looks like he knows all about creepy.

"I'm Garry," he says, and she wants to laugh.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. Or, uh, Gerard." He frowns a little, his slightly chubby face creasing. "How did you get here?"

She'll call him Gerard, because she doesn't want to laugh at him. He's exactly the same kind of huge failure as her. She wonders what kind of music he likes. "I fell through my mirror," she says, and she smiles.

His answering smile is brilliant, wide and full of goofy white teeth. "That's awesome."

"It didn't feel so awesome at the time," she tells him, edging closer to the bed. Maybe there's something in here that will tell her what the hell's going on, but she gets the sense that she'll have to get used to thinking on her feet, which is just code for making shit up. "What about you?"

Gerard shakes his head and his shaggy hair falls into his eyes. She notices that he's not wearing any makeup, something that shouldn't strike her as odd. "I live here, actually. Always have. I've been in the hospital my whole life, though."

She bites back a gasp, and she isn't sure why, but she's struck through with an overwhelming feeling of horror. "What? That's crazy."

Gerard shrugs. "Yeah. I guess so." Then the smile is back, very sudden and bright. "Hey, do you want to see something? I tried to show James, but he wasn't interested."

_James_. Lyn-Z frowns. "You mean Jimmy?"

Gerard nods and leans over his bed, fumbling under it, but Lyn-Z isn't ready to let this drop. If she's learned anything from the crappy fantasy novels she loves, it's that names matter, names are fucking _important_, and if Jimmy's calling himself one thing and Gerard is calling him another, it means something.

Her question dies before she can ask it, however, when Gerard pulls himself upright again, clutching a ragged pile of paper splashed with color. "My art," he tells her, as if he needed to say it.

"I do art," she says, surprised into candor. She's not used to letting strangers know about her hobbies, but she feels like Gerard might be excellent, in the same way that she feels like Jimmy is a little off somehow.

"I thought you might," he says, and she's all ready to be suspicious again until he points at her hoodie, which is stained blue and green at the cuffs.

"Not like that, though." She takes the papers from him and thumbs through them. They're beautiful. _Haunting_ might be a more appropriate term, actually. Skeletons and crosses and little girls with blank eyes litter the pages, interspersed with ravens and splotches of color that might be aborted drawings. It's like looking straight into her nightmares.

She should be completely terrified, or at least creeped out, but she isn't. If anything, the pictures just make her trust Gerard more. "Wow," she says.

He ducks his head a little. "You like them?"

All of a sudden, she feels tall and confident and together next to him, and she reaches out to touch his hand. His skin is clammy. "I like them," she says.

He laughs with something like relief. "Yeah? Neat, thanks. James only looked at them once, and he wasn't really into them or anything. Don't get me wrong, he's okay, but . . ." His face falls and his voice goes quiet. "Maybe he was offended by the fucking subject matter, you know? Maybe I didn't paint his people very well or something."

"He's one of them," she says, slightly horrified. "Jimmy, he's part of the—"

"The Parade," Gerard says weakly, and she can hear the capital letter. "They're not how you think, though," he says. "They're not—not _evil_."

Lyn-Z wants to laugh at the word, because he said it, she didn't, but she can't quite bring herself to find this funny. "What are they?" she asks, thinking of her dreams.

He shrugs. "I don't know. I've never seen them. Lyn-Z, this whole place feels like some sort of weird dream, but without the part where you can tell the difference because you're awake part of the time."

She shakes her head, feeling out of her depth but like she's finally getting somewhere. "I don't think it's a dream, exactly. That would mean I'm not real, and I know I am. Or else you're not, but you seem real, too. I think this is, I don't know, somewhere else. Something in between." She doesn't know what they're between, but she knows that the words feel right, or close to right.

Gerard nods. "Looks like you have a handle on it, kiddo." He says _kiddo_ like it's a friend thing, not a condescending thing.

"No," Lyn-Z says, "I really don't. But I appreciate the thought. At least you treat me like I'm not stupid."

Gerard tilts his head, with a strange expression. "You're talking about James."

Lyn-Z hesitates for a second, but she thinks she can trust Gerard. She has to believe she can trust someone in this stupid, broken, half-world, and she knows she can't trust Jimmy. If she doesn't have faith in anyone, she won't be able to do this right, or at all. She doesn't know why it's so important that she _does_ do this, but she can't shake the feeling. "Yeah," she says softly. "Can you tell me about Jimmy?"

Gerard shifts a little in his bed, sitting up a little higher on his pillows. "Well, yeah, sure. I mean, I can tell you as much as I know, which isn't much."

Lyn-Z thinks Gerard looks a bit more healthy now, which is weird. This place doesn't look like it would be good for curing anyone. She bites her lip, wondering again what exactly is wrong with Gerard, and why she can't get up the courage to ask.

Suddenly, Gerard's monitor starts beeping. Lyn-Z jumps, caught off-guard, but Gerard just glances at it in apparent annoyance. "Oh, hey, sorry—"

She can't hear any more, though, because the beeping gets louder and louder, drowning out first Gerard's voice and then more and more of the room until she's left standing in a white voice.

Something shifts slightly, something imperceptible, and she knows she's not in the other world anymore, exactly. Instead, she's dreaming again. It would be unfair to call this dream a nightmare, because it's so, so much worse than all of the others.

She's standing in the square. The blimp hangs overheard, low and black. It almost looking like it's oozing into the sky. Lyn-Z shakes herself, trying to fit herself into her name, trying to decide which person she is. If she's strong enough to handle this.

She looks left and right, and she has to blink to keep the dull sheen of the air from making it hard for her to see. She needs everything she's got to handle this. She tries to remind herself that it's just a dream, but it feels so real, almost as real and when she's actually through the mirror in the other world. For the fiftieth time, she asks herself what exactly the other world is, and whether or not the dreams are part of it.

Sh doesn't have much more time to think, though, because when she turns around again, there's someone there. A woman, with her back to Lyn-Z, stands at the other end of the square. For a second, it's as though Lyn-Z is just a few inches from the back of the woman's head, and then she's far away again. An irrational fear shoots through her, and she doesn't dare take a step forward. This is something new and horrible.

The woman turns to her and Lyn-Z can see that her face is covered by a gas mask. Lindsey starts in her sleep, jolted half-awake.

Blinking, she sits up in her bed, fingers wound tightly in the sheets. "Oh my God," she whispers. Whoever the woman is, Lindsey is completely, viscerally afraid of her. Maybe she shouldn't even go back to the other place. Then again, if she doesn't, the nightmares might get worse.

She sketches the woman in the margin of her notebook the next day, horrified at what her own hands are doing. She can't concentrate at work. She avoids mirrors.

That night, she dresses carefully before going through the mirror. She puts on a bright rainbow striped shirt under her black hoodie, zipping it up to cover the shirt completely. She isn't sure why that should make her feel better, but it feels like safety, if not hope. Maybe she won't be able to beat whatever she finds on the other side of the mirror, but at least she'll be somewhat prepared.

She doesn't put on any makeup this time.

She gets a feeling that although this is far from a fairytale, the third time through the mirror might be different and important. If only she were even close to ready. All she can think is that it's too soon. As epic quests go, this isn't a very fucking fair one.

Her hand on the mirror looks too pale, and she thinks of Gerard. Maybe this is a fairytale, a little bit. Maybe he's the damsel in distress. The thought makes her smile, and she meets her own eyes in the mirror. "I could use a sword," she tells her reflection, and her voice comes out thin and shaky.

After what feels like far longer than usual, the mirror melts and sways, and she dives in, pretending to be ready. The silvery, fluid surface of the glass feels oddly comforting this time, probably because she knows what's coming after.

The last two times, everything in the world through the mirror was slow and careful, but this time, as soon and Lyn-Z's feet touch the ground, she feels tense. She's not scared, not yet, but she looks behind her immediately, on edge. Her vision blurs as she turns too quickly, and she shakes her head. It's not her head, though. Something is wrong with the world. She wishes she'd landed in Gerard's room, instead. It might not be any safer there, but at least she'd have a friend.

Right on cue, Jimmy is at her elbow, tugging at her hard. Not exactly what she was looking for in the way of a friend, but he'll do. "Hey," she says, a little irritably. "What's going on?" She isn't going to waste time playing around, because something is clearly wrong.

"We should get inside," he says, his voice wavering bizarrely. She's reminded of the way the air blurred when she turned.

She can't explain why, but she wants to pull away from him, to disobey him. "Sorry," she says, even though she's not, really.

Jimmy's fingers tighten, and his voice is full-on shaking now. "Lyn-Z, please. Please, we have to hurry." He tugs ineffectively at her sleeve.

"No," she says, pulling hard enough to shake him off. "Not till you tell me what we're running from." She's going to start trusting her gut here, for whatever that's worth. She plants her hands on her hips and waits.

Jimmy cringes away a little, dabbing at his makeup. "Shit, Lyn-Z, please." When she doesn't budge, he shivers all over once and says, "Christ, fine."

She doesn't budge.

After another nervous glance around, he starts to talk. "This is your third trip here. They've noticed you. They—Fuck, Lyn-Z, I _can't_."

She shakes him again, hard. "Dammit, Jimmy, you fucking tell me what's going on or I'm going to _end_ you. Don't think I won't." She feels almost ready to carry thorough on her threat, and she doesn't think it would be entirely as wrong as it seems. Jimmy isn't exactly dead, but he's not exactly human, either. She doesn't know what being part of the Parade means, exactly, but she's not sure she needs to know. Some things are just intuitive, and she can tell that it changes you. She doesn't know what Jimmy was like before, but she'd bet money that he wasn't like this.

He twists in her hands, jerking and jittering away. "Okay, okay, okay." She can't tell if the blurring of his words is just his weird speech pattern, or if it means there's something horribly wrong with both him and the world.

"Jimmy," she says.

He stops dead, staring at her with wide eyes. "Yeah? Yeah, what, go."

"Jimmy." She's worried, now. If she has to fight him or something, she's not sure she can take him. Who knows if being part of the Parade gives him some sort of weird powers? She hasn't seen any indication of that yet, but she wouldn't exactly be surprised. More than seeming dangerous, though, Jimmy seems like he's scared. "You need to tell me what's going to happen."

His face remains strangely still. "The Parade," he says, licking his dry lips. "The Parade is coming. I'm sorry."

Oddly, Lyn-Z feels anything but afraid. She's nervous, sure, but at least this is action. At least this is something she can _fight_. She crosses the square to a heap of artistically piled rubble and grabs a crowbar. Hefting it in her hand, she looks back at Jimmy. "Okay," she says, "is there anything I need to know?"

Jimmy swallows, his skinny throat bobbing. "Y-yeah. Yeah, a lot of things. I guess we don't have time for most of them. You'll find them all out eventually, no matter what happens next. If you stick around."

As if she could stop coming here, at this point. "Just the important stuff, then," she says. She glances up. The sky looks _lower_.

Jimmy nods, another shaky, brave movement. "The Parade," he says.

"Yeah, waiting." She just met Jimmy; she shouldn't care so much about hurting him. She reminds herself to be hard.

"They take people. They come into their dreams and the lure them here and then they take them." He says it all in a rush of sound, the words tumbling over each other. He sounds terrified. Looking left and right and running his hand through his hair, he says, "They're here for Gerard."

Just like with everything else that happens in this world, Lyn-Z isn't exactly surprised. It's like a dream where she knows what's going to happen before it does. "What happens when they take people? I mean, you seem okay." Jimmy doesn't exactly seem okay, but she's getting the sense that it isn't _entirely_ the Parade's fault.

He shrugs. "You bring more people in, I guess. I don't know if it's all building toward anything, or . . . I don't think it is. I think it's something else. But the problem is, sometimes people don't want to go. And the Parade does whatever they can to make them want to come along."

"Like making people sick. Like Gerard," Lyn-Z says, feeling cold.

Jimmy nods quickly. "I guess so. Yeah. Yeah, maybe like Gerard."

Lyn-Z feels helpless. The one thing she can't do is fight Gerard's battle for him. She could easily take on the Parade herself, or she feels like she could. But when it comes to giving people the confidence to deal with shit . . . Well, she's better off lighting her guitar on fire and messing around with paints in her room. She isn't equipped to save lives like that.

But she's fucking well going to try.

When they make their way into the hospital ward, Gerard is lying in bed, face white as ever, eyes shut.

"Gerard," Lyn-Z says softly, and he doesn't move. She repeats his name more loudly, and then almost in a shout.

Finally, he opens his eyes and raises his head a fraction. "Lyn-Z? James?"

She shakes off the brief annoyance at the reminder that Jimmy has been here before and goes to Gerard's side. "Hey, you. How're you feeling?" She's terrible at this and she has no idea where to start.

He smiles feebly. "Okay. Not bad. Been better."

She touches his arm. "Gerard . . . Look, we don't have much time, and I'm just going on crazy hunches right now, but . . . Look, if you're here, and you're sick like I used to be . . ."

He nods. "Yeah?"

"Well, what do you dream about? Where do you go? You don't fall into this world in your dreams in through your hospital monitor or anything. And you don't fall into our—into my world. So, what is it?"

Gerard shakes his head. "Lyn-Z . . . I was born here. I'm part of this. I—I'm not like you and James."

Lyn-Z hits the wall hard with her palm, almost without realizing it. "I'm nothing like Jimmy." The urge to lash out violently is nearly overwhelming, and she's not sure why.

Gerard looks surprised. "Well, no. I mean, he's part of the Parade."

And that's when Lyn-Z realizes. Of course, of _course_ that would matter. Up until now she's been going along as if she can do what Jimmy does and be fine, but she's not even on the same wavelength. If she wants to access his world, she's going to have to do something desperate.

Jimmy's face, when she turns to him, is white. And then the whole world is white, and Lyn-Z is going back again. She reaches for Jimmy, but it's too late.

This time, though, she doesn't go through nightmares or sleep before she emerges in her room. She just blinks furiously until her bedroom appears around her. It's still dark.

She stands up and takes a deep breath. If she doesn't go back through the mirror tonight, it'll be too late. She knows this with as much certainty as she's known anything in this whole crazy business.

Grabbing an eyeliner pencil, she draws thick black strips around her eyes, as thick as Jimmy's, maybe even a little wider. She isn't sure if the eyeliner feels like defiance or protection or acceptance, but she's used to uncertainty by now.

She doesn't know what the Parade is, either, at least not exactly. The worst part is not knowing why she's so afraid of it. She doesn't think it's evil, though, and that's a valuable gut feeling. If she's wrong, of course, she could be a world of trouble. If she's right, she could be on the way to having a hell of a lot of neat adventures. For now, she'll trust Gerard's assumption that the evil isn't in the Parade itself.

Going with her instincts also tells her that the woman in the gas mask is evil, which doesn't make any sense. If the woman is part of the Parade—and Lindsey thinks she is—she might be hurting them, too. Lindsey rolls her eyes. She didn't plan on saving skeletons and kids in marching band uniforms a week ago, but a week ago, her life wasn't this surreal.

The surface of the mirror yields almost immediately under her hand, as if it's responding to her newfound confidence.

This time, she ends up back in the hospital room. If she had a longer time to explore this world, she could figure out how the transportation works, but as far as she can tell, her entry-point into this place switches off between the square and the hospital.

"Hey, Garry," she says shakily, because she can't be too careful throwing around names people haven't given themselves at this point.

He and Jimmy are sitting side by side on the bed, and Jimmy looks even paler than Gerard does. Lyn-Z almost feels bad for him. He's kind of a dick, but like Gerard said at first, he's okay.

"Um, hey," Lyn-Z tries.

Jimmy cracks a weak smile. "Nice makeup."

"Yeah? Did I do it right?" She wouldn't exactly trust validation from Jimmy, but she'll take what she can get right now.

He nods. "Not too shabby, kiddo." _Kiddo_. It doesn't sound too bad when he says it, either.

She turns to Gerard. "So. Before I get sucked back to my stupid room, want to hear my plan? I'm gonna join the fucking Parade."

Jimmy gasps audibly, but Gerard doesn't even flinch, although he looks like shit.. "I thought you might," he says. "You're pretty fucking brave, you know that?"

She ignores the flare of hope and turns to Jimmy. "If I do this," she says, "I won't be like you, Jimmy. I won't be scared and angry and always fighting."

Jimmy's mouth twists, but he bobs his head and a half-nod. "I get that," he says. "And you're not wrong. I've been a lot of stupid shit, Lyn. But if you do join them—if you join us, you can help change that." He actually blushes a little, self-consciously messing with his hair.

Lyn-Z laughs. "I'm not in this for you. I'm not going to spend my time in the Parade saving your ass." She gets the feeling that she might end up doing exactly that, though. He's not a skeleton and he has better fashion sense than the people in her dreams, but it amounts to the same thing.

Then she turns back to Gerard, because there are some things she needs to clear up before she goes and tosses her normal life away. "Gerard . . . are you dying?"

Gerard's face goes several shades paler, but he shakes his head. "Not dying. I don't think so, anyway." His forehead creases. "I'm stuck here, though."

Lyn-Z is way past done with this. She's done with dancing around issues and code words and secret, hidden meanings. This is a weird world, though, and maybe she'll have to put up with it for a little longer. She's not Jimmy, and she can't just pull things out of her ass and have them work. "What does that mean?" she asks, managing to keep the edge out of her voice.

Gerard smiles ruefully. "Sorry. I wish I knew."

Lyn-Z has the sense that maybe she knows what this shit is about. The Parade is fucking with Gerard's head so he'll want to join, and if he joins . . . She can't get rid of the feeling that maybe that wouldn't be the end of the world. There must be worse things than the lines and lines of skeletons and children in marching band uniforms. "It's okay," she says, "I have an idea." It's not exactly the truth, but she has the beginning of one, and that's something.

"Yeah?" Jimmy shoves her shoulder, and she does her best not to shrug him off. "It better be a fucking awesome idea."

"Well," she says slowly, "We need to get someone from the Parade here, right? Because I'm sure as hell not walking into their . . . I don't know, their base or whatever."

Gerard's face lights up. "I'll bet they live in some sort of fucking creepy castle or something. I'll bet it has vampires and shit."

Lyn-Z is torn between kind of wanting to smack him and kind of wanting to marry him. "I'll bet. But maybe Jimmy can help us clear that up, huh? How many vampires do they have?" She doesn't really feel like being fair to Jimmy and the moment, so she's going to push vampires and castles on him, at least until he starts looking genuinely scared again.

Right now he mostly just looks irritated. "There aren't fucking vampires. But, uh . . ." He trails off, running a hand through his hair. It's a stupid-looking habit, but then again, it's pretty stupid-looking hair. "There kind of is a castle. But you can't just call them up on the phone there, or something."

Lyn-Z can't shake the feeling that they're running out of time, but it's not like she has any better ideas than trying to pry information out of Jimmy. "Okay," she says, "So what can we do? Can't you take me there? You're one of them." She doesn't mean for it to come out in quite such an accusatory tone, but she's not entirely sorry. He's being difficult.

"Right," Jimmy says, "Because I want to get blamed for letting a crazy girl fuck us up."

"You're not stopping her, either," Gerard points out. He's still smiling a little.

Jimmy shrugs, and it's almost a flinch. "They're not evil, but they're not perfect. Fuck, Gee, it's not even the Parade, it's . . ."

"Her," Lyn-Z says, nodding. "Yeah. I know."

Gerard looks at her questioningly, but she gets the feeling that he shouldn't know about the woman in the gas mask just yet.

"So," Lyn-Z says, "What do we do?"

Jimmy's hands are twisted in Gerard's sheets, and he doesn't say anything for a long moment. Then he says, "I have no idea. I—I don't have anything, Lyn-Z."

She feels suddenly as though something incredibly painful and sad and horrifying is happening in front of her, but she can't grasp it. It's just a fleeting feeling, but she has to turn away from Jimmy. "Then I don't know," she says after a second.

"I might," Gerard says haltingly, looking between Jimmy and Lyn-Z. "It's just a hunch, but—"

"No," Jimmy interrupts, "You're right in their, y'know, their fucking grasp or whatever. You're so close you could touch them. Your hunches are useful."

Lyn-Z nods at Gerard. This feels right and for once, uncomplicated. "Let's try your way."

Gerard clears his throat. "Okay. Um. I feel a little dumb, but here goes." Then he begins to do the last thing Lyn-Z expected: he opens his mouth and starts to sing. His voice wavers a little, slightly nasal and unpracticed, but it doesn't actually sound bad. The words aren't anything Lyn-Z knows, and she suspects that he may have made them up.

As his voice rises, he becomes more confident, and before long, the room is full of his voice, scraping and stumbling occasionally, but mostly sounding fucking amazing. Lyn-Z shuts her eyes and thinks of all the rock stars she's ever believed in. They sounded like this, angry and desperate and wanting, like she's felt so many times in her stupidly short life.

Finally, Gerard stops, breathing hard. When Lyn-Z looks at Jimmy, she sees that he's crying.

Before any of them can say anything, though, there's a tap on the door and it swings open.

Lyn-Z bites her knuckle, surprised and a little afraid. There's a skeleton standing here, hand outstretched.

"Oh," Lyn-Z says. "Hey."

It doesn't quite look like the ones in her dreams. The bones are darker, stained by time or dirt or both. It moves more haltingly as it steps into the little white room. The only thing that's the same is that she's not really scared of it, except in a vague, far-off sort of way.

"I think I'm going now," she says, turning to the others.

"If you do this," Gerard says, "there's no going back. There's no more normal." He doesn't look very worried though, and his face is still flushed from singing.

Lyn-Z pauses, more because she knows she _should_ think about this decision than because she actually wants or needs to. She's spent her whole life being just to the right of normal, and if she goes back to her world, she's not going to fit in any better than she did before. She's not sure she wants to. If following the Parade means death, though, maybe she doesn't want to be that weird.

As if he can read her mind, Jimmy says, "Just because they're skeletons doesn't mean you're going to die. It just means you'll . . ." He waves his hands vaguely.

"Join the Parade," Gerard says. "You'll be one of them. And no one will be able to hurt you or change you."

Lyn-Z doesn't trust the Parade, but she trusts it more than anything else in her life. The thing that worries her the most is that she'll be leaving Gerard and Jimmy behind in this washed-out, empty world. There's something in Gerard's voice and words that bothers her, as if since the skeleton entered the room, he's gotten even closer to being _in their grasp_, as Jimmy put it. "Can't you come?" she asks him, already knowing the answer.

Gerard shakes his head. "Not yet. We haven't earned it." He gives her a painfully earnest smile. "Someday, though." He still sounds distant.

"I'm hoping I get a gas mask," Jimmy says, and he laughs a strained laugh.

Lyn-Z glances at him sideways. "That's not funny."

"I'm not kidding," Jimmy says. His face is hard, but hopeful.

Lyn-Z doesn't know if any of this makes sense, or if it's even right, but it _feels_ right, and she's going not take a chance. "I'll be around," she tells Gerard, making eye contact and holding his gaze. "You know I will. The Parade comes through here all the time. And I'll remember you."

"You won't be the same," Jimmy says. His mouth twists a little, bitterly. There are still tears in his eyes.

"No," she says, still looking at Gerard, "but I'm not going to just go with it. I'm going to shake shit up."

He nods a little, still smiling. "Yeah, I know. Hey." He opens his arms awkwardly.

Lyn-Z hugs him, hoping that she'll be able to keep her promise. The Parade isn't the enemy, though, she knows that. She isn't quite sure what to do about the real enemy, but she'll probably find out before too long. "It'll be fine," she tells him. She wishes she had something concrete to offer, a shared joke or a pearl of wisdom, but she just holds him a little tighter and says, "I'm okay, I promise."

He nods and gives her a tiny push. "I know. Go."

Lyn-Z shuts her eyes, reaches out, and takes the skeleton's hand.

When she opens them, she's wearing a black marching-band uniform threaded with silver. She blinks down at herself. Her scruffy fingerless gloves are gone, and she instantly resents that. Fuck the Parade if it means she loses her awesome stuff. She looks around, trying to figure out what's different. She's standing in the center of a square paved with gray stones. In front of her is a huge building, some sort of citadel. The walls are some sort of brown stone and the windows have a strange sheen so that she can't see inside.

She takes a few steps forward, trying to feel out any changes that may have happened to her body. She's not made of bones, and that's a start, but it does feel as though there's something different about her skeleton. It feels as though her very framework is creaky and tense, made of crackling candy-wrappers and card houses.

The inside of her head feels different, too. These are not her words. She usually thinks in short, sharp curses and stupid questions; she doesn't do poetry. She'll leave that to Gerard, maybe. He must have words, somewhere buried in his head and his hospital bed. The close little room flashes across her vision, all whites and grays, and she suddenly feels as though she might not have enough time to do everything she needs to do. It must be how Gerard feels all the time.

Shrugging off her concerns, she quickly makes her way to the doorway of the citadel. It would be easier if she didn't know exactly what she was going to find inside. There might be other things, though, before that, and she can handle skeletons. She's always been able to handle skeletons.

Besides, maybe what she thinks of as the lesser members of the Parade won't mind her so much now that's she's wearing their uniform and probably even paler than before. She looks at her hands. Hard to say. The fact that she's technically part of the Parade now doesn't seem to have changed her mind about what she has to do, though, which is a comfort. She's not becoming any sort of creepy, hiveminded freak.

She's still just the normal kind of freak, then.

When she reaches the door, she considers knocking, but instead she just shoves it open. No sense drawing attention to herself.

Inside, there's a giant empty stone corridor leading away into nothing. Lyn-Z knows it can't possibly be that long; the building isn't big enough, but she also knows that the laws of physics are kind of shit sometimes in places like this.

Because there are a thousand turn-offs, she chooses the first door on her left, and goes in.

Inside is a massive room, the ceiling too high for Lyn-Z to see, filled with soft, gray light. At the far end of the room, there is a dais, much like the one Jimmy was sitting on when she first met him. Standing in front of the dais is a woman with her back to Lyn-Z.

She doesn't have to turn around for Lyn-Z to know who she is.

"Is this the part where I say, 'You have no power over me'?" Lyn-Z asks, sounding braver than she feels. Her voice echoes a little in the huge room.

The gas mask woman turns, blank, covered eyes gazing at Lyn-Z, who must look like just another member of the Parade to her, standing defiant in front of her in a clean black marching band uniform.

"Hi," Lyn-Z says, but she can feel anger beginning to burn inside her again. This whole thing has been fucking up her life since she was _born_, and she's not really happy about that, thanks. "Hi, bitch," she tries again.

She's suddenly aware of two skeletons standing at either side of the dais, a little behind it. They move forward together, bones clicking and creaking in sympathy with Lyn-Z's own.

"You shall not address the Mother in that way," one of them says. At least, Lyn-Z thinks it's the skeleton who says it. It's hard to be sure, because it has no vocal cords and no mouth.

Lyn-Z turns a little to the skeleton on the right, the one who probably didn't speak. "Why's she called the Mother, anyway? She's not your mother." She wonders for a second if the skeletons used to be like her, or like Jimmy. They probably didn't. Like she's been telling herself all along, the Parade isn't death. It isn't life, either, though, and she's not prepared to let them take Gerard. Something can be evil without being good.

"She is the Mother," the first skeleton says, and its jaws click together, sending a few teeth clattering to the stone floor.

Lyn-Z knows, though, without being told, who the woman in front of her is. She's been having dreams about this place for years, and she thinks she knows it at least as well as these skeletons do. The name has been whispered, imageless, though her dreams since she was a child, and it rises to her tongue now. "Mother War," she says quietly. "I know." That implies an army, though, and that's worrying. Who would the Parade fight?

Her fingers instinctively go into her right pocket, where she usually keeps a lighter, but her fingers are met with nothing but soft black cloth.

She stands in front of the Mother, wishing like hell that she'd said goodbye to her own mom. It would have been important. Maybe there should be something in the Mother's face that reminds her of home, or of what she sometimes hates about her parents, but there is nothing. It could be that she's just not that screwed up, or it could be that she's deliberately ignoring anything that could make this harder. There's no space in her head for mistakes. There can't be. If she's going to save Gerard's stupid ass, and maybe Jimmy's, too, she needs to be thinking clearly.

She reaches into the breast pocket of her uniform, not expecting to find anything there either. Instead, her fingers touch a small scrap of cardboard. Pulling it out, she finds that the book of matches she sometimes carries has somehow managed to stay at the bottom of her pocket. "Oh," she says.

And she smiles.

The Mother does not move. When Lyn-Z lights the match and a tiny fire flares in the semi-darkness, she turns a little, as though trying to figure out what she should do next.

"Hey," Lyn-Z says, mostly for the hell of it. She gets the feeling that the Mother isn't exactly big on verbal communication. "Hey, bitch. What's up now?" She waves the match a little, careful not to let it go out.

Then the Mother takes a few steps toward her. Lyn-Z has to fight a growing feeling of inexplicable terror. She tells herself there's nothing to be afraid of, but she keeps remembering Jimmy, white and shaking when he tried to talk to her. Maybe being afraid is the correct response right now.

She doesn't have any more time to debate it with herself, though, because the Mother is coming toward her faster now, shuffling along with her dress scraping against the floor.

"Fuck," Lyn-Z whispers. The match goes out.

Without the little light, the room is suddenly a hell of a lot darker, but Lyn-Z can still make out the masked face of the thing coming toward her. She feels tiny and lost in her black uniform with her cold hands and her dead match. She just feels like plain fucking Lindsey Ballato again.

The Mother pauses right in front of her, holding her hand out. When she speaks, her voice is gravelly and a little distorted, but still recognizably female. It sounds like dying or going home. Lyn-Z doesn't want to do either. "Sings me a song," the Mother says, hand opening toward Lyn-Z, slowly and inexorably.

A song rises in Lyn-Z's throat, swelling in her chest, something beating like a kick drum but nothing like a heart. The words on her lips are swollen and muffled, the Mother's song and no one else's.

She shuts her eyes and thinks of Gerard and Jimmy. She remembers the look on Gerard's face when he began to sing and the look on Jimmy's when he told her he didn't have anything. She remembers her first guitar.

She opens her eyes. "You took his songs," she says, tears starting in her eyes.

The Mother pauses, creaking slightly.

Lyn-Z takes a deep breath. "You took Jimmy's songs. You took his music and his fucking lyrics. And that's why you want Gerard and that's why you want me. Fuck. You want to—I don't know, to take our music and substitute yours, or something. That really pisses me off."

Shaking slightly, she draws up every image of music in her life, from her mom and dad's records to her scratched CDs to her own scratchy singing voice. Her mind is a wave of brilliant red and gold color, lyrics written large and black across it. And she starts to sing.

It kind of sounds like shit. She hasn't practiced in years, and she's used to thinking she's not very good at it, and she's scared, but none of that matters. The words thread their way through the thick air, blinding Lyn-Z with their color and warmth. She never knew she had it in her.

The Mother, apparently, wasn't prepared either. She reels back, the metal on her dress snapping, her gas mask starting to smoke.

Lyn-Z just keeps singing.

The room begins to fill with smoke from the Mother's face, and Lyn-Z is inclined to either laugh or scream, but she does neither. She keeps moving her mouth, singing through the smoke and the strain on her voice. Her throat aches and the song still sounds like of shitty, but she knows she can't stop now.

Finally, the room is so full of smoke that Lyn-Z eyes sting, and she can't sing anymore, and she has to cough. The darkness is growing, too, and she buckles over, coughing and finally shutting her eyes.

The next thing she's aware of is being very thirsty. Her throat hurts like hell and whatever she's lying on is soft. Her face feels stiff, like she's been crying. "Hey," she says. It comes out as a croak.

"Lyn-Z?"

She opens her eyes. Gerard's worried face is inches from hers, and she's lying slumped on his hospital bed in the little white room. He's standing up, though, and looking better than she's ever seen him before.

"Water," she says.

His face creases, an expression that's already becoming familiar, but he hands her a cup, and she drinks, taking stock of her surroundings. There's more light in the room than she's ever seen before, and she realizes that the windows are open to the square outside. The square is full of light, too.

"What the hell happened?" she asks, blinking a little at the new brightness.

Gerard grins at her. "It's over. I mean, you'd know best, right? But I think it's over. I feel—I've never fucking felt like this before." He's still pale, but Lyn-Z suspects that he might be naturally pale, like she is.

"Wow," she says. "I guess I did that, huh?"

Gerard pulls her into a hug. "Well, yeah."

She squeezes Gerard's arms. "And how did I get back here? Did you come and get me?"

Gerard laughs. "Yeah _right_. Do I look like I could do that? You came back yourself, but I guess you don't remember. You walked right in the door. Singing." There's something weird in his eyes when he says it, not quite fear. Respect, maybe.

She turns away, a little uncomfortable. "Where's Jimmy?" she asks. There are probably more important things, but this matters, too. She wants to sleep for a million years, but she has to make sure everything's okay first.

Gerard shakes his head. "Gone. He left when—well, when everything stopped being dark. When he opened the door, there was this red glow all across the horizon, and he said he had to go. To put things right with the others, he said."

Lyn-Z lies back in bed and breathes. "He'll be back, then," she says. He'll be all right, probably. He's probably not the best person to take care of the kids in the Parade who've been freed by the Mother's end, but at least he knows what they're going through. She can feel a little of it herself. Her chest feels empty, and there isn't any music in her head right now. Maybe there won't be for a while.

She sighs and lies back on the bed. "I think I have to sleep for a little bit now," she says.

*

When she wakes up, she's still in the hospital, and she bites back shock. Sleep or unconsciousness generally seems to transport her back home, but not this time. "Hi," she says. "I'm still hospitalized."

Gerard looks up from where he's sitting across the room. "You're awake!" He's got marker stains on his hands, paint splatters on his shirt, and a pencil behind his ear. "I've been doing art," he says, flashing Lyn-Z a brilliant smile.

"Wow," she says, grinning back, "How long have I been asleep?"

He ducks his head. "Not too long. Guess I had a lot of backlogged stuff to draw." He waves a marker.

Lyn-Z gets out of bed carefully, making sure all of her limbs work and everything. Then she flings herself on Gerard, squeezing him in a hug. "We're fucking alive," she says. "Not just right now, but for years from now." She pauses. "If we can get back to the real world, of course."

Gerard pats her back awkwardly. "Don't worry about that. Jimmy's been sending kids back all day. I guess one of them managed to save a pocket mirror, and that works to get them back home to their real lives."

Lyn-Z sits down again, suddenly dizzy. "Okay. That's good. But what about you? I mean, you're always saying you're different because you've always been here, but . . ."

Gerard shakes his head. "But I don't want to be sick anymore. I feel great. I think . . . Look, there's nothing left for me here, you know? Can I—"

"Dude," Lyn-Z says, grinning, "Shut up. Of course you can come with me."

His smile is open and full of light.

Lyn-Z knows not everything will be easy, of course. The Parade and the Mother may be gone, but there are real life problems to deal with. There's college next year, for her and maybe even for Gerard, if he can fit himself into the real world. But they are alive, and they'll keep on being alive, and everything else will come after.


End file.
